Ground zero "mosque" Beirut style

A friend passed this along, from a US blog I'd never heard of but which seems quite interesting.

This blogger, Ghassan "Gus" Bridi, apparently an Arab American and a lawyer who describes himself as leaning left on some matters and right on others, was thinking about Newt Gingrich's comments on the lower Manhattan mosque fracas. And he was thinking about Lebanon, and its rebuilding after the 2006 war. By the way I just happened across a very fine French film about the 2006 Israeli bombings called Under the Bombs. Keep an eye out. The story isn't the most original in the world, but it was evidently filmed amid the actual rubble and thus is quite something to see.

Anyway, this guy writes that the effect of the 2006 bombings was devastating. About 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed, which put on the US scale would be the equivalent of 90,000 Americans. And he writes:

...that's the equivalent of roughly thirty 9/11's Israel exacted on Lebanon in July and August 2006 over the course of 34 days—nearly one 9/11 a day for an entire month without relent.

Incidentally, July and August of 2006 only tell a small part of the story when it comes to Israeli aggression against Lebanon. There have been decades of invasion, devastation, and occupation which predated 2006. Several thousands of Lebanese have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Force. Tens of billions of dollars of damage have been levied on the Lebanese infrastructure and private and public property courtesy of the IDF over the course of decades.

"Ground Zero" for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, "proportionately" speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit?

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghden Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the "Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon's rebirth.

This isn't some hole in the wall, nondescript, "excuse me" synagogue hidden out of view so as to not "offend" Lebanese non-Jews—this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

You can read more about the synagogue here. Even Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah sanctioned the building of the mosque, saying his beef was not with Judaism but with Israel.

So Newt Gingrich makes Hassan Nasrallah seem like a moderate. So does Sarah Palin. And they are what the world sees of America on a question like this one. It stabs the heart, doesn't it?